


Powdered Wings, Alluring Light

by MagitekUnit05953234



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Fear of Death, Gen, Mistaken Identity, World of Ruin, bottle episode, saying goodbye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 21:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16249925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/pseuds/MagitekUnit05953234
Summary: Prompto's out of ammo, out of lumen flares, and out of luck.No one is coming for him.





	Powdered Wings, Alluring Light

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "wax candles" from Tumblr user raneam-o1's gothic prompt list.

The door rattles on its hinges. Prompto lights another candle. 

Claws scrape against the shuttered window. Prompto lights another candle. 

Something screams in the distance. Prompto lights another candle. 

Prompto sits in the middle of a ring of little flames with a butane lighter clutched tight in his right hand. His phone rests on the dusty wooden floorboards in front of him, battery slowly draining. 

“Are the walls holding?” Ignis asks. The poor signal cuts and clips his words. 

“For now,” Prompto grimaces as he sees his phone a battery reading tick down from nine percent to eight. “This place isn’t exactly sturdy.”

“I know,” there's some movement on the other end of the call. “Almost every Glaive and hunter is responding to a catastrophic distress call at Meldacio currently. We only have two on the wall.”

Two. Only two. 

Prompto laughs  _ of course  _ there’s only two. There can’t be any  _ less _ than two trained men on Lestallum's wall at all times, a last resort defense for the city if the lights fall. A chance for civilians to evacuate. At pain of exile into the Night they can’t abandon their posts no matter who is dying on the outside. 

No one is coming for Prompto. 

“Prompto? Are you alright?”

“Yeah Iggy,” Prompto smiles even though Ignis can't see it through the phone. Actually, Ignis wouldn't be able to see it at all really. “It’s all good.”

A veritable horde of daemons is dead set on tearing Prompto to pieces, and the walls of some shitty Duscaean fishing shack are all that stand between Prompto and certain death. Prompto’s out of ammo, out of lumen flares, and out of luck.

“Hey Ignis,” Prompto lights another candle. The shack had a bulk box of tea lights collecting dust behind a rack of lures, and Prompto decided to test out whether the light of fifty tiny candles would be enough to prevent an immediate demise when the walls give in. His hopes aren’t high. “You know that box I brought home a few weeks ago?”

“...I believe so.”

“It’s a gift for you, for your birthday I mean. I know that’s not for a few days but you can open it whenever. It’s hidden between the couch and the wall. You'll find it.”

“Prompto—”

Prompto picks up his phone and brings it close to his mouth, turning off speaker and talking over Ignis. “Listen, Iggy. Just tell everyone I love ‘em. Have someone print out my pictures. You and Gladio should have those. Oh, and uh. Give my camera to Talcott. He’d like it.”

“Prompto,” panic seeps into Ignis’s voice, sharp and red-hot. “Don’t—”

“I'm not stupid enough to think I’m getting out of this one,” Prompto watches one of the tea lights wink out as the melted wax overtakes the crooked wick. A daemon slams into the shack’s right wall. It creaks. 

There’s a hole in the roof. Prompto can see the smoke from the slowly extinguishing candles floating upward through it toward the sky. Prompto  _ could  _ reach it if he stacked some crates, but then he’d be stuck on an unstable roof in the middle of a horde of daemons instead of stuck in a crumbling shack in the middle of a horde of daemons. Prompto prefers the shack. Knowing Prompto’s luck, he’d probably get annihilated the minute his head clears the roof anyway. He knows there’s at least one deathclaw out there. It could kill Prompto in less than a second. It’s a damn miracle it hasn’t set its sights on the shack yet, because this waiting game would be over in seconds if it did. 

“My uh,” Prompto checks his phone screen. “My phone’s dying, Iggy. Three percent, so…”

Ignis is silent for a moment, long enough for Prompto to fear that the signal cut out altogether. “I’ve sent out a Code Shiva for you. The first hunters of Glaives that become available will come to you as fast as possible.”

“I’d tell you not to bother but I know you wouldn’t listen,” Prompto jumps at the scratching on the far wall. It must be an arachne, maybe more than one. Prompto can hear their clicking. “Uh… Well! It’s not like I haven't lived a full life, huh? I’m plenty old these days. Seen what there is to see.”

“Prompto, you’re only twenty-one yea—” the phone dies.

“Ignis?” Prompto drops his lighter and cradles his phone in both hands. “You there? Ignis?”

There’s no response because dead phones don’t carry conversations very well at all. Prompto bites his lip as he considers the fact that dead men don’t either, and he’s close enough to count. 

Prompto throws his phone against the wall, right where those damned arachne are. It’s not as therapeutic as Prompto hoped it would be. 

With a sound like a gunshot, the door to the shack bursts open. The rush of outside air puts all the tea lights out simultaneously, and the smell of rot that permeates every corner of the Night in concealed for just a moment by the aromatic smoke. Prompto scrambles up, accidentally placing a hand on four different candles. The wax burns then cools on Prompto’s skin in a matter of seconds. 

When Prompto turns to face the door, he expects to see any numbers of daemons pouring in, but instead it’s  _ Gladio _ , who’s slammed the door closed and is bracing it with his shoulder.

“H- holy shit,” Prompto rushes over, kicking tea lights every which way as he goes. “What are you doing here? I thought you were at Meldacio? Shit, I thought I was a goner man, I basically just gave Iggy my  _ will _ oh man is he gonna be mad—”

“Not out of the frying pan yet,” Gladio presses his back against the door. He’s wearing his full ‘Guard fatigues, which he hasn’t done in a while. Usually he at least puts a shirt on under the jacket because of how cold it is these days. “There is still plenty of time for you to die.”

“Well yeah,” Prompto summons his revolver and opens the chamber. “But you’re here so this time I’ll kick ass no problem! You got my extras?”

“Your extras?” Gladio echoes. Something hits the other side of the door. 

“Yeah,” Prompto waves his empty gun around a little as he talks. “You guys always used to keep some extra ammo in your pockets in case I ran out. Is that… uh. Not a thing anymore since we don’t hunt together that much? I totally get it, I mean it’s not like you had any reason to keep any. I just. You know. I’m not gonna be much help getting out of here if I can’t shoot anything.”

“My apologies,” Gladio grins but it’s  _ wrongwrongwrongwrong _ and Prompto rears back, stumbles, barely avoids falling to the floor. “I seem to have forgotten it.”

“No,” Prompto raises his gun by instinct even though it's useless. “Don’t!”

The façade melts away. Ardyn, scourge-ridden and leering, stands in Gladio’s place. “Come now, I’d say you’re in no position to be turning away my help.”

“The hell I am,” Prompto exchanges his worthless revolver for one of Ignis’s polearms. Prompto was never any good with them, but stabbing is simple enough isn’t it? If he just stabs Ardyn in the gut and takes advantage of those precious seconds of recovery time, maybe he can get away to… oh. There’s nowhere to run. The polearm dissolves. “What do you wanna help me for anyway?”

“Do you really think me so heartless that I’d let you die alone in some nameless hovel?” Ardyn practically floats past Prompto toward the right end of the shack. He swoops down and picks up Prompto’s discarded phone. “Ah, I haven’t dabbled in elemancy for so long but for you…”

There’s a chirp, the familiar Libraphone start-up tone, as Prompto’s phone comes to life in Ardyn’s hands. Ardyn crosses back through the circle of candles and presses the phone into Prompto’s unwilling hands. Other than a number of new cracks along the side, it’s relatively unharmed and is fully charged. 

“That trick became much easier once you mortals figured out wireless charging,” Ardyn paces around, managing to make walking a theatrical event. 

Prompto has fifteen missed calls and a monumental amount of texts. He switches the phone to silent and pockets it. All of that can wait. Ardyn won’t. 

“What do you want from me?” Prompto remembers the cross, the snow, the taste of iron.

“I recall I made a promise to your king,” Ardyn drifts back to stand in front of Prompto. “I told him I’d keep his friends company until he is ready. I can  _ hardly _ let you die under my watch, hm?”

“I don’t want your  _ help _ ,” Prompto backs up, only start back forward when something punctures the back wall in a crush of splintering wood. “Shit.”

“You don’t have a lot of options,” Ardyn bows slightly, one hand pressed to his hat to keep it from slipping down. “I happen to be the only man alive who can call off a daemon.”

The wall behind Prompto crunches and the roof above begins to bow. 

“You’ll get me out of here? No strings?” Prompto grits his teeth. 

“Oh, there will  _ definitely _ be strings,” Ardyn smiles once again. His voice melts out of him in that terrible meandering way of his. “But not for you… and not for a good long while. By your count, anyway.”

Prompto takes a deep breath. His phone vibrates in his pocket. “What’ll this cost, then?”

“Your dear king’s life of course,” Ardyn tilts his head, puppylike. Faux-innocent. 

“Fuck you,” Prompto shakes as he turns his back to the monster beside him to face the ones tearing through the walls. “I’ll die a thousand times before I put my life before his.”

Ardyn laughs. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Twitter [@compromisedunit](https://mobile.twitter.com/compromisedunit)!


End file.
